to his words. Thousands were converted, and among them many of
the most learned of the poets, artists and statesmen of the time. The most
remarkable changes in the modes of life took place, money was restored,
and contributed freely to buy bread when famine threatened, and the
confessional was daily crowded with penitents. One of his biographers says
that "the most remarkable change that was apparent in the manners of the
people, in their recreations and amusements, was the abandonment of
demoralizing practices, of debauchery of all kinds, of profane songs of a
licentious character which the lower grades of the people especially were
greatly addicted to; and the growth of a new taste and passion for
spiritual hymns and sacred poetry that had succeeded that depraved taste."

On one side of his nature, Savonarola seems to have been of a remarkably
pure and noble character, with high aims, noble ambitions and a clear moral
insight. Looked at on its better side, his religious reformation was
wholesome and salutary, and dictated by a genuine desire to elevate worship
and to purify faith. There was a very different side to his life and work,
however, and in some features of his character he seems to have been a
fanatic and enthusiast of the most dangerous sort. He was credulous,
superstitious and visionary. He had no clear, strong and well-reasoned
purpose to which he could hold consistently to the end. An earnest
Catholic, he only sought to reform the Church, not to supersede it; but his
moral aims were not high enough to carry him to the logical results of his
position. Involved by his visionary faith in claims of miraculous power and
supernatural communication, he had not the intellectual honesty to carry
those claims to their legitimate conclusion. Weakness, hesitation and
inconsistency marked his character in his later years, and have made him a
puzzle to modern students. These inconsistencies of character have led to
widely divergent conclusions about the man, his sincerity of purpose and
the outcome of his work.

Another influence of the time, more powerful because more permanent, was
the renaissance movement, which was at this period working its greatest
changes and inspiring the most fervid enthusiasm. A new world had been
disclosed to the people of the fifteenth century in the revival of
knowledge concerning classic literature and art, and there came to be an
absorbing, passionate interest in whatever pertained to t